


Ochitsubaki (The Fallen Camellia)

by OMGitsgreen



Series: The Tales and Dreams of Dragons [2]
Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Feels, Gen, flower symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:19:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMGitsgreen/pseuds/OMGitsgreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first person Seiryuu had seen die wasn’t a bandit or an intruder, but a villager, and it remained an everlasting promise." Growing up, the unfortunate reality of the Blue Dragon Warrior's duty was made startlingly clear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ochitsubaki (The Fallen Camellia)

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble in the series of the Four Dragons and the flowers that Kusanagi-sensei gave them for motifs, normally surrounding the symbolism associated with those flowers. Starting off with Shin-ah and the Camellia (Tsubaki) flower.

_Ochitsubaki_ : “Fallen Tsubaki (Camellia)” as noted, the flowers of this tree fall intact, such that the ground beneath can become literally covered with their blossoms. During the Edo Period samurai did not allow tsubaki to be planted at their homes because the common practice in those days was for them to behead outlaws. Camellia flowers in Chinese flower symbolism mean Everlasting Love and Everlasting Devotion

* * *

Death was there, a part of life that was unavoidable for the Blue Dragon Warrior. It was disruptive and strange, like the flowers of the trees that bloomed in the dead of the rainy season, as the rest of the plants stayed dormant around it. Life moved around Death, always continuing on, however always present.

The first person Seiryuu had seen die wasn’t a bandit or an intruder, but a villager, and it remained an everlasting promise.

It was when he was still with Ao, back in the past. Ao had told Seiryuu that he had business in the village and to stay in the hut, but Ao’s face had been grim and shoulders slumped, and Seiryuu had hated seeing Ao like that. It had happened before, and whenever Ao had returned from his “business” he had always sat in the corner of the hut for hours on end. Perhaps it was a sort of morbid curiosity. So instead of staying in the hut, as soon as Ao had gone a little ways down to the village, Seiryuu had snuck after him, and had sat outside of the hut watching through the walls.

He watched as the villager was forced on his knees by two men, watched until Ao had lifted the blade, but then closed his eyes though couldn’t help but hear the unmistakable sound of metal cleaving through flesh. And then he had ran all the way back to the hut, and had sat across from Ao as he returned him, haggard and slow, cooking dinner only for Shin-ah and then staying quiet for the rest of the evening.

The next day Ao had taken Seiryuu out with him, Seiryuu had seated himself beneath a tree as he watched Ao practice for hours and hours despite the weather. It was the cusp of that time of year that Seiryuu dreaded, the greyness beginning to fill the sky up until it overflowed with cold rain. His breath was wisps of white, and he huddled himself beneath a tree to stay out of the dreary drizzle. Ao took his break to drink water, he began his regular questioning. 

“Seiryuu, what do you do if someone has you by the neck?” Ao asked him as Seiryuu picked up a stick.

“Try to knee him in the tummy,” Seiryuu answered, shivering in the cold drizzle of the rainy season.

“What do you do when a person has you by the arm?”

“Twist your arm and bend it forward,” Seiryuu answered as it had been repeated to him constantly.

“Good,” Ao said shortly, just the faintest whisper of pride in his voice, and Seiryuu had let the praise warm him through and soak into his skin like the nearly forgotten sunlight. “What do you do if you get stabbed?”

“Stab them back…no matter what.”

“Why?”

“Because…we…kill intruders,” Seiryuu explained, scratching a picture of a sword into the dirt with his stick, the sticky redness of blood flashing behind his eyelids as it soaked into the earthen floor of the Elder’s hut and making him shiver.

“Good. What are you drawing there?” Ao asked, and when Seiryuu moved to let Ao see. Ao inspected the picture momentarily before nodding and leaning back against the trunk of the tree he was resting against, “that’s pretty good there.”

Seiryuu had smiled, but felt it soon fall off his face as Ao’s expression regained its solemnness. Noticing his sudden change, Ao groaned and stretched his limbs. 

“What? Spit it out, brat,” Ao commanded him.

“Ao…kills villagers too…”

“You followed me yesterday didn’t you?” Ao asked, but Seiryuu had known it wasn’t a question.

“…m’sorry…Ao…”

For a moment Seiryuu prepared himself for punishment, however instead of that Ao just crossed his arms over his chest.

“Look at me, Seiryuu,” Ao commanded, and Seiryuu had met his gaze. “You know the rules, don’t you? No one in this village with the cursed blood can ever leave. That villager tried to escape, and he was caught.”

“But…protect…”

“Sometimes we need to protect the villagers from other villagers,” Ao said with a heavy sigh. “Humans are greedy, and evil at their worst. They will put others in danger in order to satisfy their greed. So we do that which must been done. We are cursed so the duty falls to us.”

“Ao…doesn’t like killing…”

“No I don’t, but that’s what I do,” Ao said before saying before tapping the trunk of the tree he was resting against, “it’s our way of life.”

“Way…of life?” Seiryuu had asked looking up to the branches of the tree. 

“The only way we can live, Seiryuu,” Ao explained softly, “the only way of life that is allowed to us. So if a villager betrays the village, you cut them down. And they will betray the village, and one day you will have to cut them down. It is inevitable.”

“Will…will you betray the village?” Seiryuu had asked him as he skootched over to his side.

“I betrayed the village only once,” Ao said quietly.

“Ao did?” Seiryuu had asked, shocked.

“But I did it, because other villagers had betrayed it. I was forced,” Ao explained, his eyes far away. “Some things are just inevitable in this world.”

“…inevitable?”

“Things that happen no matter what you do, like the sun rising,” Ao explained.

“Will…Ao betray me?” Seiryuu had asked him softly.

For a moment Ao met his gaze, studying Seiryuu closely as if the answer could be found in his visage. When Ao’s eyes seemed to capture it, they almost took on an ethereal glow, like embers beneath a steeping pot, comforting and gentle in their intensity. Instead of reaching to grab, Ao scooped Seiryuu into his lap, and Seiryuu melted into the loose embrace that sheltered Seiryuu from the rain and the cold.

“No,” Ao said, his chin touching the top of Seiryuu’s head and the rhythm of his voice in his bones. “That’s something I can’t do. That’s a promise that I will always keep.”

Eventually, when Ao was gone, a villager betrayed the village.

In the underground the blood pooled and remained stagnant, as bright as the petals that bloomed in winter.


End file.
